


a cumbersome and heavy body

by goinghost



Series: mask of my own face - autistic nureyev (read series description) [3]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Autism, Autistic Character, Autistic Peter Nureyev, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Sensory Overload, internalized ableism, it always comes back to that huh, peter nureyev accept yourself challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27271999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goinghost/pseuds/goinghost
Summary: ***PLEASE READ AUTHOR'S NOTE***It was supposed to be a simple mission.--A comms malfunction causes sensory overload and Nureyev is forced to deal with the consequences of keeping so many parts of himself hidden.
Relationships: (for chapter two), Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Vespa Ilkay & Peter Nureyev
Series: mask of my own face - autistic nureyev (read series description) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985986
Comments: 23
Kudos: 134





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT:  
> i've debated orphaning the fics in this series for weeks now but i've decided against it to instead keep them on my profile with this disclaimer: i'm not comfortable with my characterization in this series and i feel like my approach to this headcanon has changed. i'm glad people have enjoyed them but i personally don't anymore. it's still fine to leave kudos and comments but just know there will almost certainly be no more fics posted in this series
> 
> hello it's me again with more autistic nureyev content, this time a multichapter! (only two chapters but still) it's quite cathartic to stick nureyev into my own life experiences and play around in that space, which explains why i've been churning these fics out. this wasn't actually supposed to be more than a oneshot, but then i realized i really wanted vespa and nureyev to have a conversation about All This. 
> 
> expect chapter two sometime in the next few days (maybe not until after the weekend because i'm releasing an original short story i've been working on for a long time on saturday and i still have some edits left to do) 
> 
> title from 'body' by mother mother, which is just the eternal sensory overload mood 
> 
> cw for sensory overload obviously! and my nureyev-brand internalized ableism present throughout. also the beginning goes into some canon-typical evil pharmaceutical industry activities that might be upsetting to read. take care of yourselves

It was supposed to be a simple mission. Get in, get out, charm a mark on his way through. Nothing Nureyev wasn’t used to doing countless times before. 

They were hitting yet another minor pharmaceutical corporation in pursuit of their larger goal. Today’s infiltration took place during a gala where Better Smiles Inc. would unveil their newest treatment for Jovian flu. The treatment’s starting price tag was, of course, 3,000 creds, but that was predicted to rise as Better Smiles perfected the vaccine. Some experts hypothesized that the life-saving treatment could be priced as much as 5,000 creds per dose within the year. 

That is, if no one happened to steal the formula for the treatment out from under Better Smiles’ nose, placed it in the hands of a trustworthy physicians’ organization, and set about distributing it across the affected planets of the Outer Rim. Hypothetically. 

The Aurinkos plan had been in motion for days now, days they spent falsifying documentation and faking public appearances in order to get Nureyev an in to the gala where he would gain access to a vial of the vaccine on display while the rest of the Aurinko crime family made short work of the facility hosting the event in order to procure the information they needed. 

Nureyev was currently at the charming stage of the operation. Things were going quite smoothly until suddenly something...happened. The comms earpiece that he used to communicate with Captain Aurinko and the rest of the crew gave a sort of static shudder and then almost...erupted. It began emitting a sound so violent that Nureyev could do nothing but cover his ears and pray it would stop. He felt as if the insides of his skull were being scraped by razor-sharp claws, tearing into the bone and echoing around his head. There was a sensation traveling just under his skin that was not unlike so many beetles squirming just below the surface of his body with pointed feet and rough carapaces. 

After a few seconds (although it felt like hours) of the infernal noise where Nureyev stayed almost kneeling on the ground, he managed to realize that he only needed to take the comms out of his ear, but by then the damage had already been done. 

His mark stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. Aloysius Sandoval was not a man who liked to have things sprung upon him, a fact Nureyev had become intimately familiar with in their interactions in the past hour that he’d spent getting close to him in order to get closer to his goal of the vial. He assumed that the man Aloysius thought of as Cassius Rey doubling over and practically screaming in agony was enough to warrant the description of “sprung upon him”. 

“Are you alright?” Aloysius asked with a concerned frown. Ah yes, for all that he worked for a life-draining pharmaceutical corporation set to profit off of the death of millions across the galaxy, the man had some semblance of a heart. How quaint. 

Even with the earpiece firmly hidden in his fist, Nureyev could still feel the sound vibrating through his insides. Aloysius must hear it too, he thought, it felt like all Nureyev could be aware of in that moment. There was no way the other man hadn’t noticed the concealed comms. 

Even if his cover had nearly been blown, he knew with a professional certainty that he could still salvage this interaction. He schooled his distraught features into those of aching pain ( _ Honestly, Pete, you can’t let every little sound get the best of you. First rule of thieving: he who controls his reactions controls his situation.)  _ and gasped dramatically for effect. “Oh, Mr. Sandoval, it would seem I’ve just come down with a terrible migraine!” 

Aloysius regarded him quizzically, though the concerned tilt to his mouth never disappeared. Perfect, Nureyev could work with this. “Just now?”

“Yes!” He wailed, careful of his hands and the earpiece that still rocketed within, “The device that I use to mitigate them has malfunctioned,” here, he displayed the comms with a flourish. A tinny soft of noise radiated off of it almost too soft to be the horrible thing Nureyev had heard moments ago. “I’ve been struck with immeasurable pain!” 

“We need to get you to a doctor or something. We need to—”

Cassius Rey (for he was Cassius Rey in that moment. Peter Nureyev may falter at unpleasant stimuli but Cassius Rey merely had an untreatable migraine to deal with) held a finger to Aloysius’ lips, “No, no, I need not medical assistance. All I need is a private place where I might replace the machine that got me into this trouble in the first place.” 

The other man looked wary, as far as Nureyev could piece together, but he hoped that was more directed at the situation than his ploy for an escape. After a moment of staring, Aloysius nodded and directed him to a large sign for the restrooms. Still wailing and making a big show of shielding his eyes from the light, Nureyev made his way over to one of many private stalls and ducked in. 

The moment he had closed and firmly locked the door behind him, he all but collapsed onto the floor. Whatever energy that had been keeping him upright and in character vanished as soon as he was out of immediate danger of being discovered. Cassius Rey left the body of Peter Nureyev as if he were a specter that was done possessing a particularly obstinate corpse. 

He felt so overwhelmed that he almost didn’t notice that the awful noise was no longer being projected out of his comms unit. Instead, he faintly heard the voices of his crewmates speaking unintelligibly. With a caution usually reserved for much more extreme circumstances, Nureyev slipped the earpiece back into his ear.

Immediately, Rita’s frantic voice replaced the buzzing under his skin. “—really didn’t mean it, Mistah Ransom, I’m so sorry! Like I said, the thingy just lit up and I thought,  _ Oh, Rita, you’ve cracked the code! Better press the button!  _ But this button was not a nice button and then the pulse happened and I really did try to get it to stop sooner, except it was operating on a completely different frequency than the rest of the comms signals which shouldn’t have been possible! And I’m oh so sorry that it took so long because I know you sometimes don’t like noises like that and—” 

“Rita,” Nureyev said, his voice barely a whisper. Speaking felt  _ wrong,  _ as if his throat were attempting to block the words from exiting his mouth. He could barely rasp out those two syllables without a wave of discomfort forcing him to shudder. 

Rita’s voice lost its panicked edge “Oh, good, you’re back! Like I was sayin’, I really am sorry that that pulse got your comms all scrambled, but don’t worry, Rita’s on the case and it shouldn’t happen again! You ain’t even miss much, just me shuttin’ off the rest of the cameras by the display case so you can go nab the vaccine we’re after! But that ain’t gonna be a problem for Mistah Thief-Ransom, right?” 

He tried to reply, but her words did nothing to remove the blockage in his throat. He felt as if the very act of speaking were so herculean an effort as to be impossible. Every part of his mind that formed words was being weighed down by lead and stone and steel. He couldn’t even eke out her name again. When he opened his mouth, nothing flowed from it but air. 

Nureyev’s head was pounding. The noise that began this entire lapse in professionalism may have stopped, but he was suddenly hyper-aware of every other noise surrounding him. The water dripping from the sink, the muffled chorus of a piano through the door, even the whirring electronic sound of his comms was making his vision spin. 

Distantly, he could tell that Rita was speaking again, and then the captain was speaking, and then Juno. But he found that he couldn’t make out a single word they were saying. The sounds of his little corner of the world were drowning out any other noise. He couldn’t think, he could barely even breathe. He pulled his knees up to his chest like a puppeteer controlling a marionette and starting rocking back and forth. 

The motion calmed him, but did not lessen the unsettling sensations throughout his body. He wanted nothing more than to rip his skin apart. God, had everything always been this  _ loud _ . 

With what few bearings he had left, he remembered that he was on a mission. He had a task that he was supposed to be doing. That part of him paled in comparison to every other corner of his mind that begged for something— _ anything— _ to just  _ stop _ . 

He stayed rocking himself on the floor of that restroom for who knew how long. Nureyev’s usual impeccable sense of timing was marred by his embarrassing state. When he began coming back into himself inch by inch, he found that he could barely stand to glance his own way in the mirror.  _ Disgraceful.  _ A complete and utter lack of the competence that he knew he was capable of. Not only had he endangered the mission, but he’d fallen off the path of their carefully laid plan completely. Cassius Rey was never supposed to come close to the restrooms for all that he made his rounds around the gala. This entire situation had devolved into a mess that Nureyev wasn’t sure his crewmates would bother picking up. Better for them to just leave him to his devices completely and escape before Aloysius could raise any alarms at his odd behavior.

And for what? A simple sonic emission that he couldn’t bring himself to handle like an adult. Nureyev prided himself on his ability to accomplish his goals and the goals of his clients with a single-minded focus. He was very good at what he did and he recognized that. Tonight, he had all but proven that his pride was, perhaps, unfounded. Not completely (he’d managed to sequester himself into the restroom after all), but as his working relationship with the Aurinko crime family continued, a serious reevaluation of his skills was in order. Nureyev did not like it. 

His skills were always something he knew he could rely on. He had trained himself (and been trained by... _ others _ ) so carefully as to be a virtual thieving machine. His mind was sharp and his reflexes quick. He knew how to accurately analyze an expression or a tone of voice because he’d been doing it his entire life even in casual contexts. Nureyev was a veritable bounty of tools of his trade, and yet he’d been undone by nothing more than a malfunction in an otherwise perfect plan. Yes, his improvisation abilities had saved him in the moment, but the fact that improvisation was needed at all was enough to attest to how utterly he had failed. 

His spiraling thoughts were not appearing to lessen, but they were stopped abruptly in their tracks by a familiar  _ knock knock knock  _ at the restroom door. Juno’s lovely voice bounced around Nureyev’s skull for a few moments before his words became coherent. “Rey, you still in there?”

The amplification of every noise was coming to an end and he felt well enough to push himself into a standing position and crack the door open. Sure enough, Juno Steel (dressed very inappropriately for the formal gala) stood in the doorway. When he saw Nureyev’s face he breathed a sigh of relief, “Oh good. Rita didn’t see you leave on any of the cameras, but I know that doesn’t really mean anything considering the whole,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “ _ master thief  _ thing.” 

Nureyev nodded. Words still hadn’t come all the way back to him. Idly, he wondered how long until Juno noticed that he was at reduced faculties and elected to leave without him. Except Juno wouldn’t leave without him, Nureyev knew that. He couldn’t say the same for the rest of the crew, but he at least could hold onto that one guarantee. 

“What happened? That weird sonic pulse went off and then we heard you making some big fuss about a migraine. Are you okay?” Juno’s expression shuddered into one of concern, much like Aloysius Sandoval had gazed at him however long ago. But Juno’s watchful eye was a welcome one, it was one that Nureyev cherished every moment it turned on him. 

Unable to speak his mind properly, he gave a frustrated sigh. This was untenable. His voice was one of his greatest weapons and here he was devoid of it. This happened occasionally, but it hadn’t been a problem in many years. Nureyev had been sure that he’d trained himself out of this childish habit of forced silence ages ago. 

He held up a finger to Juno, where the concerned slant of his mouth only seemed to worsen the longer he went without replying. With his other hand, Nureyev dug around the hidden pockets in his suit jacket until he came away victorious with a glittery pink pen he was sure belonged to Rita and a crumpled wad of clean notebook paper. Using the wall as a writing surface, he quickly scribbled out,  _ I’m fine. Had a momentary... _ He searches for the correct word, _...lapse. I can get the vial.  _

Juno took a moment to read his rushed handwriting before he said, “Don’t worry about the vial. Buddy contacted her guy and she said that she could do the work with just the formula, so Buddy didn’t see any reason to risk it. We’ve been trying to tell you that for the past ten minutes. Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Ah, so that’s what they’d been saying while he was indisposed. His sole job in the mission had been called off and he hadn’t even been in his right mind to realize it.  _ First rule of thieving: always be in your right mind.  _

Nureyev cleared his throat to see if he could make up for his incompetence before realizing the effort was futile. Knowing how these things used to go when he was much younger, he would probably be unable to speak for at least the next hour. Instead of dwelling on that, he wrote out,  _ What do we do now? _

“Now we make a graceful exit,” then Juno grimaced, “Or, as graceful an exit we can while I’m dressed in pants I haven’t washed in weeks and you’re done up like a stream star. Just, uh, act like you’re supposed to be doing whatever it is you’re doing and it’ll be fine, right?” 

He nodded, then wrote,  _ I can’t talk right now.  _

Juno nodded back at him, “Yeah, I was gonna ask about that but—Never mind, it doesn’t matter right now. From these bathrooms it’s a straight shot to the maintenance exit. As long as we dont walk like we’ve got something to hide, we should be able to get out of here without any trouble.” Juno blinked, seeming to realize what he’d just said. He quickly rapped a knuckle on the synthwood doorframe, “Knock on wood.” 

Nureyev dutifully knocked on the doorframe as well. He made to write something else, but then thought better of it. Now was not the time for deliberating when they were so close to ending this entire affair. He took Juno’s arm in his and swept him out of the restroom with the gusto of a newlywed. In his experience, seeing public displays of intimacy caused people to turn away and ask fewer questions, which is exactly what they wanted while Nureyev was unable to answer anything. 

They made it to the door that Juno pointed out in less than one and a half minutes. With a grace Nureyev was relieved to see that he still possessed, they slipped out the exit and rushed across a field to where the Ruby 7 awaited them. She chirped loudly as soon as he touched her seats and the sound felt more soothing than grating. It really was an incredible vehicle. 

Nureyev was dreading what their captain would have to say about his complete lack of professionalism, but Buddy Aurinko didn’t so much as sigh as the Ruby 7 raced back toward the Carte Blanche. She appeared to be deep in thought. Even Vespa, who normally took every opportunity presented to her to lament Nureyev’s position on the crew didn’t rise to the occasion. She simply scowled at him and grumbled something unintelligible. 

Rita prattled on about the state of the server she’d hacked into and the fact that Better Smiles Inc. apparently had horrid file management, then moved onto talking about a gameshow she’d watched where people have to organize a cluttered Desktop, then regaled the plot of her favorite stream about death games, and by the time the Ruby 7 pulled into the garage of their ship, she’d described all eight seasons in detail. The journey hadn’t been particularly long, but Rita had the incredible talent of not needing to breathe for what felt like minutes at a time. 

The chatter helped soothe some of the remaining uneasiness deep in Nureyev’s bones. The consistent stream of noise calmed him as opposed to agitating him. The muscles of his throat loosened inch by inch.

Juno held his hand the entire ride, rubbing his thumb across Nureyev’s knuckles and grounding him. He leaned his weight on his partner as if Juno were an anchor keeping him from floating astray. When the car stopped and the crew departed, Juno didn’t let go of his hand. All at once Nureyev was struck by his love for this lady. 

So distracted by his feelings was he that he almost didn’t notice when Vespa appeared scowling in front of him. “Ransom,” she said.

Nureyev waited for her to elaborate. She did not. He decided that one word responses were well within his capabilities at the moment. “Yes?” 

“We need to talk about what happened back there. I’m not gonna make you do it in front of the crew, but whenever you and Steel are done sucking face or whatever, see me in the infirmary.” With that, she walked off towards her and Buddy’s room. 

Nureyev swallowed. He supposed it was a good sign that it was she and not Buddy who demanded an explanation, but he was unsure of why she needed one at all. Still, he was not going to be the one to deny her, as Vespa already spent her time looking for an excuse to remove him from the crew. At least this gave him the option to try to plead his case to her before she reported whatever information she gleaned back to Buddy. 

Juno seemed to sense his worry, tightening his grip on their shared hands. He tugged Nureyev towards his quarters while keeping up a stream of idle chatter, like he knew that the sound of his voice was enough to soften Nureyev’s edges. Nureyev interjected every few thoughts with a hum of acknowledgement or a nod. When they arrived, Juno moved them straight to the bed so that they could lay down and tangle themselves together. 

Juno’s babbling ceased as he held Nureyev against his side. The silence would have felt oppressive, if not for the soothing motions of Juno’s hands working out the tension in his body. It seemed like so long ago that sensation had caused him such trouble with how comforting Juno’s touch was now. 

They laid together for seconds or minutes or hours. Vespa’s request to talk fell into the back of Nureyev’s mind, unimportant compared to the feeling of Juno’s mouth on his shoulder. It was a moment like any other they’d had, full of a love he hadn’t thought possible until he’d met one Juno Steel. 

He’d made a fool of himself on their mission, and he knew that Vespa would likely never let him hear the end of it and he may be forced to leave the Aurinko crime family entirely, but just then, with Juno’s searing touch grounding him to their shared bed, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m unsure what telling you any of this is supposed to actually accomplish. You can’t prevent me from every silly little sensation that upsets my delicate constitution.” 
> 
> Nureyev watched the knife flick in and out of Vespa’s hand for a moment. “God, you’re stupid,” she grumbled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> exploring the relationship between nureyev and vespa was very fun! i really love these two and it was cool smushing them together 
> 
> cw for brief allusions to ABA and nureyev-brand internalized ableism that vespa tries to shut down

Nureyev didn’t make his way to the infirmary until after dinner. 

His excuse was that it was difficult to consider having what would undoubtedly be a serious conversation on an empty stomach and he hadn’t eaten since that morning. In truth, he wanted to prolong the inevitable dressing down for as long as possible. 

Nureyev wasn’t sure what the ploy of having the ship’s doctor berate him as opposed to the captain was supposed to accomplish when he’d received admonishments from Buddy many times before, but the fact that his fate was in the hands of someone who regularly threatened him did nothing to motivate him to want to talk about his failure. If he were not sure that Vespa would hunt him down at knifepoint in order to have their conversation then he would have continued to avoid it. 

As is, he made it several hours before he forced himself down the hall. He knocked quietly on the door to the infirmary, feeling all at once like a prisoner about to be hanged. Vespa’s gruff voice gave a, “Come in.” And so he entered. 

She was sitting next to a few open cabinets, rearranging the contents inside. “Finally decided to show up,” she said, “I was beginning to think I’d have to track you down.” 

Nureyev cleared his throat. His voice had come back to him hours ago, but words still felt uncomfortably sticky in his windpipe, “Yes, well, I am here now. What is it you wanted to discuss?”

Vespa rolled her eyes and gestured for him to take a seat in one of the many chairs surrounding their one bed. “You know what I wanted to discuss, Ransom.”

“Right,” Nureyev took a seat and took care to straighten his spine. “Right, yes. You should know that what happened today will not be happening again. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how it happened at all. I was under the impression I’d grown past such reactions. I will be doubling my efforts to train my mind so as to prevent another....incident, now that I am aware that it is still a problem.”

“No.”

He blinked, “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Vespa rasped, “You don’t need to “train your mind” or whatever it is you were going to do. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“But—what?”

She stared at him meaningfully. At some point she’d started fiddling with a pocket knife that Nureyev hadn’t noticed she’d pulled out. He would say he was getting sloppy were it not for what he knew of Vespa’s proficiency as an assassin. “I’m not a psychologist but I know what sensory overload looks like. Why didn’t you tell me you had sensory issues when I screened you?”

He blinked again, “Sensory issues?”

“Yeah,” she rolled her eyes, “Sounds, touch, smells, whatever gets to be too much sometimes? Ring a bell?”

“I—I wasn’t aware it was still a problem,” Nureyev tapped his fingertips together in his lap. He allowed his leg to bounce a few times before keeping it still. 

Vespa’s meaningful glance deepened. She regarded him as if he were a puzzle, an expression Nureyev was familiar with on his own face. Her pocket knife still spun in her hand. “Right. Because you “trained your mind”, huh?”

He nodded. 

“Okay, Ransom, here’s what’s gonna happen, because, frankly, I don’t want to unpack all...that. You’re gonna tell me all the things you think you trained yourself out of and we’re gonna figure out how to help before you end up having a meltdown on a mission  _ without  _ you pulling any weird behavioral therapy bullshit.” 

Nureyev tilted his head, confused. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said.

Vespa groaned, “Look. There’s nothing wrong with not liking certain sounds or—or not being able to talk sometimes. Or anything else you might be trying not to do around us that’s a natural part of who you are. That’s all fine. It starts being a problem when you don’t tell your  _ doctor _ ,” she grit her teeth, “and we can’t  _ help you.  _ Do you get it now?” 

“A natural part…” Nureyev trailed off, considering this. Yes, there were certain behaviors that were instinctive. He flinched at certain sounds, recoiled at certain touches, couldn’t push words past his throat on certain days. But he’d never considered these a “natural” part of him. They were always hindrances, things that got in the way of his skills as a thief. The way his limbs insisted on tapping and moving and flapping were identifiable habits that he’d spent years breaking. He compensated for his inability to understand the thoughts going through another’s head by studying expressions and body language like his life depended on it (and, in some cases, it did). These were not “fine” as Vespa had said, they were liabilities. 

But Vespa, trained in a more lucrative profession than even a thief, didn’t seem to think so. That confused him. Why could she not see how he could be endangering the crew by leaving these lapses in his control unchecked? 

“Yeah, Ransom, a natural part.” She pointed her knife accusingly at him. “It’s not something you need to fix or train away. I just need to know what your issues are so you don’t freak out on us again. Yeesh.” 

Fine. If she was going to insist that it was fine while she had a (albeit small) knife in hand then who was he to continue denying it? “My issues…” he began, “High pitched noises—they bother me. I find it difficult to touch textures that are too smooth. When I do hear or touch those things I find myself unable to speak for the next hour or so.” He sighed, suddenly worn and weary from laying himself bare for her to gawk at, “I’m unsure what telling you any of this is supposed to actually accomplish. You can’t prevent me from every silly little sensation that upsets my delicate constitution.” 

Nureyev watched the knife flick in and out of Vespa’s hand for a moment. “God, you’re stupid,” she grumbled. 

“Excuse—”

She bulldozed over him. “What do you do that helps?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Helps? When you can’t speak, or you hear a high pitched noise, or literally anything else?” 

He didn’t want to say. The answer felt almost too embarrassing. The behavior of a child, not a man in his late 30s. But Vespa very obviously wasn’t going to take no for an answer and he couldn’t think of a way to exit the conversation without being pursued. “I—move. Rock. Bounce my leg. Shake my hands out. Sometimes I will tap my fingertips together in a rhythm,” he demonstrated briefly, “It calms me.” 

“Okay,” Vespa nodded, “we can work with that.”

“Buddy—” he started, then stopped. Another in a list of childish things. 

“Buddy?” Vespa prompted. 

Nureyev cleared his throat, “Captain Aurinko gave me a...tangled mess of plastic to fiddle with when my hands desire to move.” 

“Oh, Buddy gave you a stim toy. Fine. I was probably gonna grab you one from the drawer anyway.” She scowled at him, but there remained something unreadable in her gaze, “When you get overwhelmed just use that, it should probably help you feel better. Do you know SSL?”

“Solar sign language? Yes, but—”

“Great,” Vespa said, her voice flat, “I’m not as good as Buddy or Sikuliaq, but I can get by. If you can’t talk and need to tell us something, try signing it. That should work.”

Signing while he was unable to speak...He’d never thought to try that before. He was always so overwhelmed with the loss of his voice that he found it hard to think of any cleverer workarounds than grabbing the nearest paper and pen and hurriedly scrawling what he needed to say. It was an inelegant solution for an inelegant problem. Of course, according to Vespa it was not a problem. Nureyev wasn’t sure if he believed that just yet. 

“Anything else you think might come up?” Vespa asked. She sounded and looked exasperated with him, and Nureyev wanted nothing more than to end this conversation already so he quickly shook his head. Vespa nodded, “Fine. If something does happen, we’ll figure it out, I guess. You’re free to go count your knives or whatever you do instead of sleeping.” 

He stood faster than he meant to and almost toppled over his chair. “Good night, Vespa,” he said, because it was polite. Vespa huffed back in response, turning to continue rearranging the contents of the cabinets like she’d been doing when he’d walked in. He took that as a final dismissal and made his way to the door. 

Once he was out in the hallway, he let out a long breath through his nose. That had been a humiliating experience, but he supposed it was no more humiliating than the configuration he’d been in earlier that day. Regardless, Vespa was satisfied and there had been no talk of Nureyev taking a permanent leave of absence from the Aurinko crime family, so he was willing to chalk it up to a success in his mind. And Vespa’s words had been...interesting. Something to consider further, perhaps. 

But not right then. No, then it was time to get back to Juno’s quarters and fully relax with his lady in his arms. Nureyev shook out his shoulders, tapped his fingertips, and started down the hall to where Juno lay in wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> you can find me on twitter, although i haven't been very active as of late. been spending too much time with my lovely wife. 
> 
> quick shoutout to my amazing roommate who is always willing to beta my fics for me! thank you for all the help, levi <3 
> 
> comments and kudos send me over the moon! feel free to drop some if you're so inclined


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